Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Diving
Albany's appeal as a top-class diving destination grew after the 2001 scuttling of the war-
ship HMAS
Perth
to create an artificial reef for divers; visit
www.hmasperth.com.au
. Its
natural reefs feature temperate and tropical corals, and are home to the bizarre and won-
08-9841 7176;
www.divealbany.com.au
;
84b Serpentine Rd)
can show you the underwater world.
DIVING
Fishing
Beach fishing at Middleton and Emu Beaches is popular, and
Spinners Charters
( 08-9844
08-9844 1562; Emu Point;
FISHING
Sep-May)
provides paddle boats, kayaks and motorised dinghies.
Alkoomi Wines
(
www.alkoomiwines.com.au
;
225 Stirling Tce; 11am-5pm Mon-Sat)
Just in case you were having with-
drawals from wine tasting, Frankland River's Alkoomi has set up a handy tasting room
right in the middle of town.
WINE TASTING
ALBANY'S WHALING BATTLEGROUND
Talk to some Western Australians about their childhood holidays in Albany and, as well as carefree days of fish-
ing and swimming, they're also likely to recall an almighty stench in the air and sharks circling in bloody corners
of Frenchman Bay. The local whales, whose blubber created the vile smell while being melted down in pressure
cookers, and whose blood spilled into water around the then Cheynes Beach Whaling Station, also appear to re-
member this scene far too well. It took them well over a decade to return in full strength to the waters around Al-
bany after the last whale was hunted on 20 November 1978.
The whaling industry was gruesome in a most public way - whales were hunted, harpooned and dragged back
to shore to be cut up and boiled - which is perhaps why the environmental movement managed to make its clos-
ure one of their earlier successes. It became harder for the industry to make the smell, the blood and the sight of
harpooned carcasses being towed into the harbour anything but unattractive.
One of Tim Winton's earlier novels (
Shallows,
1984), set in Albany, where Winton lived for some time as an
adolescent, describes how whaling became an emotional battleground for environmentalists and the many local
employees of the industry, similar to the situation in timber towns throughout the southwest in recent years. This
pressure from protesters, as well as dwindling whale numbers and a drop in world whale-oil prices, sounded the
death knell for the industry.
But Albany has cleverly managed to turn this now-unacceptable industry into a quaint tourist attraction, with
the fascinating Whale World Museum and maritime festivals, which celebrate its rough-and-ready history on the
seas. The whales who play in the surrounding waters are all the happier for it - as are the town's tourism-boosted
coffers.
